Humiliation
and Underwear: Examining IDF Soldiers’ Social Media Posts
By Helena Wilkins
Word Count: 2348
Abstract
The paper attempts to answer the question of how social media posts by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers from Palestinian homes convey humiliation, particularly a feminised humiliation. Accordingly, by analysing posts from IDF soldiers during their attack on Gaza, this essay outlines how such images and videos uploaded to social media by the IDF soldiers are serve to humiliate, signify (military) dominance and carry distinct threats of (sexual) violence. Moreover, dynamics of racialised, sexualised and gendered violence are relevant in the discussion of these photos taken and posted on social media during a time of intense conflict.
There has been a proliferation of images coming out of Gaza in the last few months, as journalists and everyday citizens have been documenting what is happening under the Israeli attacks. These images, crucially, share what is being done to the people of Palestine, specifically Gaza, with the world. Many of the emerging pictures do not ‘only’ show the atrocities of the Israeli military forces’ indiscriminate bombing and attacks, but frequently display Palestinians being humiliated by IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers (Salaman, 2023). Surprisingly, not only journalists publish such content; IDF soldiers themselves have been directly sharing images of their war crimes on personal social media accounts (Toler et. al., 2024). Many of the images and videos, such as those that show IDF soldiers pretending to teach in bombed out classrooms or stealing women’s underwear to pose with it, can be seen as mocking the Palestinian people and their plight (The New Arab Staff, 2024; Shirbon & Grzanka, 2024). I argue that these posts exacerbate the (mental) harm done to Palestinians by contributing to their humiliation and dehumanisation at the hands of their oppressors. Thus, this essay will ask the question how do posts by IDF soldiers from Palestinian homes convey humiliation, particularly a feminised humiliation? In order to answer this question, I will begin by outlining the concept of humiliation (within political conflict) and the different relations at play. Then, I will use descriptions of images posted by IDF soldiers to specify the effects of (feminised) humiliation. Lastly, this essay will close with a short conclusion.